Game Day: It might be the Dodgers’ kind of year

Editor’s note: This is the Thursday, March 30, edition of the “Game Day with Kevin Modesti” newsletter. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.

Happy Opening Day. The next seven months will show if the Dodgers took a step backward this winter or if they have their rivals right where they want them.

In other sports news:

• The Lakers are 3-0 when Anthony Davis (38 points), LeBron James and D’Angelo Russell start together after opening a trip with a win against the Bulls in Chicago.

• The Clippers didn’t have Kawhi Leonard or Paul George but got a season-high 36 from Russell Westbrook and ended Memphis’ home winning streak at 12 games.

• Angel City FC agreed to a two-year contract with Scarlett Camberos, a former Big West Conference Player of the Year at UC Irvine who left Club America after dealing with online threats in Mexico.

• UCLA’s fourth-ranked women’s gymnastics team competes in the NCAA’s Los Angeles regional tonight, seeking a spot in the NCAA championships that will be held April 13-15 in Fort Worth, Texas.

• CSUN fired men’s basketball coach Trent Johnson, who went 14-48 in two years running a program that has 14 consecutive losing seasons.

• And Calyx Hampton, the former gymnast and Western Christian High (Upland) track athlete now wrestling as Sol Ruca, performs Saturday in WWE’s NXT Stand & Deliver show at Crypto.com Arena, the night before WrestleMania at SoFi Stadium.

The Dodgers, who open their 2023 schedule with four games against the Arizona Diamondbacks, starting with Julio Urias on the mound tonight at Dodger Stadium, have a history of winning the World Series at the oddest times.

Going back to Brooklyn days, the Dodgers have managed not to win the World Series after any of their 10 highest-win regular seasons, last season being a particularly painful recurrence of this condition.

Over the last half-century, their three championships have come in the strike-shortened season of 1981 after the best team in the National League (the Reds) didn’t make the jerry-rigged playoffs, in the 1988 season when Bob Costas planted the popular notion that their injury-ravaged lineup was the “weakest” in World Series history, and in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic reduced the season to three months and left the Dodgers facing Tampa Bay in the World Series on a neutral field in Arlington, Texas.

So maybe it’s no surprise that the Dodgers didn’t win it all in 2022, as preseason pennant favorites who collected a franchise-record 111 wins in a full-length regular season.

And no surprise that some people think they can win it all in 2023, when they might not even be the best team along a 130-mile stretch of Interstate 5, in a season when expectations are jumbled a bit by the uncertain effects of new rules.

When seven Southern California News Group writers made predictions for the season, baseball columnist J.P. Hoornstra was the lone voice picking the Dodgers to end up on top in the NL West.

“The Dodgers won 111 games last season and (by Pythagorean W-L, and my own two eyes) could easily have had a better record, given how poorly some of their formerly dependable hitters (Max Muncy, Chris Taylor, Cody Bellinger) and closer (Craig Kimbrel) performed,” Hoornstra said when I asked him about it. “So, how far can a team fall in one season? How much did the Padres do to close that gap? I see both of them as 95- to 100-win teams – the Padres being within the margin of error – but giving the Dodgers the benefit of the doubt because I don’t believe they fell that far off such a high cliff. Also, they have the prospect capital (to trade) to acquire any major league player that would turn a weakness into a strength.”

Columnist Jim Alexander was the only one of us picking the Dodgers to win the World Series.

Alexander writes in today’s papers that “it’s possible I’m just being overly counterintuitive, but I’m guessing this will be a season in which the Dodgers toss the script that has sustained them for much of the past decade and find another way to the finish line, this time lying in the weeds as a wild-card team.”

Two SCNG writers picking them to win the division or the World Series: That’s close enough to disrespect that, if they Dodgers do it, they’ll certainly shout that nobody said we could do it.

Dodgers beat writer Bill Plunkett’s season preview story pulls no punches, saying: “The Padres are the ones with the robust payroll, throwing money around at a rate only the New York teams have topped this year. The Padres are the ones with a potential mental edge after prevailing in the postseason last fall. … (The Dodgers have) more questions than they typically have had entering recent seasons.”

Plunkett’s position-by-position analysis shows that after losing shortstop Trea Turner, third baseman Justin Turner, center fielder Bellinger and 15-game winner Tyler Anderson this winter, and then having shortstop Gavin Lux hurt in spring training, the Dodgers need more than a few not-so-sure things to pay off alongside right fielder Mookie Betts, first baseman Freddie Freeman and pitchers Urias and Clayton Kershaw.

They’ll count on young players: Miguel Vargas starting at second base, James Outman with a role in the outfield, and Ryan Pepiot the No. 5 starter at least until Tony Gonsolin is off the injured list.

They’ll count on thirtysomethings to, in some cases, bounce back from poor seasons: Muncy, now the everyday third baseman; Miguel Rojas, next up at shortstop and a surprise contender to replace Justin Turner as vocal clubhouse leader; designated hitter J.D. Martinez; outfielder Jason Heyward, and pitcher Noah Syndergaard.

They’ll have to piece together outfield platoons in center and left that include Heyward, Outman, Taylor, Trayce Thompson and David Peralta.

And Manager Dave Roberts and the front office will have to come up with effective combinations of roles in a bullpen without a designated closer.

There’s a lot that could go wrong. But given their history, that means this might be the year it all goes right.

For the latest, bookmark the Dodgers page on your SCNG paper’s website, sign up for the Inside the Dodgers newsletter, and follow Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) and J.P. Hoornstra (@jphoonrstra) on Twitter.

TODAY

• The Angels open the season with Shohei Ohtani pitching against the A’s and left-hander Kyle Muller in Oakland (7:07 p.m., BSW).

• The Dodgers give Julio Urias his first Opening Day start against the Diamondbacks and Zac Gallen (7:10 p.m., SNLA).

• The Kings and Oilers, the teams with the best records in the NHL in March, meet in Edmonton (6 p.m., BSSC). Kings update.

• The Ducks won’t have Troy Terry and say Trevor Zegras is day-to-day as they visit Seattle (7 p.m., ESPN+, Hulu). Ducks update.

• The LPGA’s DIO Implant L.A. Open golf begins at the Palos Verdes Golf Club (TV coverage at 4 p.m., Golf Channel). Preview.

BETWEEN THE LINES

The Dodgers are -165 favorites (meaning you’d bet $165 to win $100) at home against Arizona, and the Angels are -210 favorites at Oakland tonight. The Dodgers have been profitable bets in each of the past four seasons, including a 7.1% profit betting the same amount on every game in 2022, according to statfox.com.

280 CHARACTERS

“Pac-12 fans should celebrate: Adding SDSU is no longer a choice for the presidents, so they can’t screw it up.” – Jon Wilner (@WilnerHotline) advocating for the conference to help offset the losses of UCLA and USC to the Big Ten by adding San Diego State, which advanced to its first men’s basketball Final Four, to face Florida Atlantic Saturday in Houston.

1,000 WORDS

Spike master: Victor Loiola (24) helps Mira Costa High (Manhattan Beach) to a 25-22, 28-26, 25-20 sweep of rival Redondo in a Bay League boys volleyball match on Wednesday night at Mira Costa. The photo is by contributor Howard Freshman.